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“He hadn’t planned to say this thing, but it came upon him suddenly gargantuan and magnificent, like a whale breaching the glittering surface of the sea. “

Delicately laced with story intertwined with story, so authentic they appear to burst forth as if with a will of their own, “Boy Falling” weaves an intricate and utterly captivating spell.

Through the generations, following characters whose ancestors were brought to life in the brilliant companion book, “House of Rougeaux”, this new epic introduces the further mesmerizing lives and loves of Gerard, his half-sister, Jeannette, and her incomparable daughter Maudie.

Gerard – an accomplished, masterful musician; lonely and intensely, unresolvedly up-rooted; Gerard is searching for a home, a heart, a “one-ness” to complete him.

“He packed securely all the things he needed to wrap his body and his soul so that he might move through the world and into the unimaginable future.“

Jeannette – a daughter, a mother, a sister, a wife – none of which completely captures her innermost yearning to share and guide others to the music she feels dancing within her.

Maudie – (my favorite) – a spirit child, and artist, – completely out-of-place in a world that likes to fit people into boxes. It’s easy to find, in Maudie, primeval traces of the ancient ancestral healer Abeje (Marie) and her brother Adunbi (Guillaume), introduced in the earlier work.

“The paper, the colors, were like magnets that drew her to them, her hands longed for them and her pictures grew from there like long, lovely exhales”

I loved these characters and their wonderful mesmerizing stories – losing myself completely to their essential kindness, their “bigness” of spirit, their heartbreaking vulnerabilities, and the bonds that so clearly define them, holding them dear to each other, and ultimately, to the heart of this reader.

A great big thank you to the author for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.